Teachers and Parents Must Leave the NYC Department of Education, Schools Are Not Safe

Parents and teachers are leaving the New York City Department of Education, with good reason.

Nearly 3,700 substitute teachers needed in NYC ahead of vaccine deadline

Kindergarten ICT classes have 22+ students and one teacher, with a paraprofessional. The law requires a limit of 18 children in kindergarten, and that all ICT classes have two certified teachers - one in special education and the other in general education - in all core academic subjects. Classes all the way up through 12 grade are 35+ students, many unmasked, not 3-feet apart, with one teacher. Hallways between classes are stuffed, everyone shoulder-to-shoulder, masked and unmasked, and not a school safety officer in sight.

Violence occurs every day.

These are facts as I know them. The truth could be a lot worse or better, depending on the school and location. If you try to speak to a principal, forget it. Principals have to hide any overcrowding and violent incidents because this harms the school's standing in the community and ends up taking needed funds from the resource bank. 

Principals can, and do, hide academic progress as well:

Are you sure your kid can read? All too many US public schools won’t tell you the truth

In my opinion, leave now if you are a parent of a child in grades pre-k to 8. Parents of high schools should remain vigilant, visit the school, drop off your child in the morning, visit the classroom, ask many questions. Listen to your child. Each child's safety matters. Get to know the Dean or the person responsible for the supervision of the kids during the school day, inside the classrooms and hallways. Don't forget the stairwells.

Teachers - do not resign without a 30-day notice, but look at other schools outside of the NYC DOE now, join the crowd. Your safety matters.

People count.

Betsy Combier

betsy.combier@gmail.com
Editor, Advocatz.com
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials

Making our schools truly COVID safe

By Catherine Vail, October 1, 2021

On Wednesday, I made a child cry. That morning, a teacher brought her to my fifth-grade classroom, explaining she was on my roster, and I panicked. No, she can’t come in. I already had 25 kids in front of me. No.

Twenty minutes later, my assistant principal appeared at my door, same child. Again I said, No.

I was told I had no choice. The little girl sobbed. My heart lurched. I went inside my room and grabbed Rosita the red bear. Here, sweetheart, she will comfort you, I said as I whispered a yarn in her ear about Rosita’s wayward brother, which made her giggle.

I put an arm around her shoulders and said, welcome honey, welcome to our class.

That’s when I decided I had to leave. I’d been teaching for three days this year, my 18th year on the job. It will be my last.

My school, in Brownsville, Brooklyn, cannot keep me — or my students — safe. Class lineup in the morning takes place with 200 plus kids in an unventilated gym. Teachers wait for up to a half-hour for their fourth and fifth graders who slowly trickle in after their morning health screenings downstairs. I have to drop off and pick up my class every afternoon in the lunchroom, where 120 plus kids are eating, so many of the children are unmasked and not socially distanced.

Twenty-six kids, most in ill-fitting masks drooping below their noses, were in my small classroom barely a foot apart — nowhere near the three feet recommended by the CDC. Deep cleaning? The week before classes began, my sister and I spent six hours scrubbing the classroom. Workbooks, projects, book reports, from March 2020 looked as if they had been preserved in amber, and were covered in a layer of grime. PPE? It wasn’t until that Wednesday, after I had been asking for days, that I was given a half-dozen children and adult masks, a box of gloves, and a container of disinfecting wipes.

The mayor insists schools are safe. They were last year when most kids were remote and in-school classes were organized in pods with five to 10 kids who did not leave their rooms. That is not the case this year. We are in a social experiment that frightens me. Yes, I believe it’s best for kids to be in school.

But has the DOE implemented competent plans to keep the students and staff safe? Maybe in Park Slope, but certainly not in Brownsville. According to the latest data on the Department of Health’s website, only 49% of the people in the zip code where I teach (11212) are fully vaccinated, way below the city average. In my opinion, schools in communities with low vaccination rates need to take additional safety measures to keep their kids and staff safe. I didn’t see that happening.

On Thursday, I filed for a medical accommodation following the guidelines the UFT reached with arbitrators. I’ve been using accumulated sick days ever since. I will not return to my building, to my kids. I have been fully vaccinated since Feb. 13, but I have underlying medical conditions that make me vulnerable if I were to get a breakthrough infection.

The DOE denied my initial application. Did they even read it? I was denied because my medical condition didn’t warrant an exemption for refusal to be vaccinated. But I am vaxxed, for pete’s sake. I filed an appeal and am still waiting for the decision. I have little faith I will be granted the accommodation. In the meantime, my school sent out a notice of a positive case last Friday. I found out later that the positive case came from my fifth-grade classroom — just what I had feared. Today, I found out that a fourth-grade classroom has also been quarantined for 10 days because of a positive case.

I was 46 when I became a New York City Teaching Fellow. I asked to teach in Brownsville, and I have been there for 18 years. I had planned to get to 20. I was with two busloads of kids on a freezing January to celebrate Barack Obama’s inauguration. I campaigned at subway stops with my fourth-grade political action committee. I had to hit the sidewalk one morning when gunshots rang out on my way down Sutter Ave. But I have never been scared; I have never been so afraid that I made a child cry.

Friday, I should have been marching down the hallways with my students, carrying posters attached to yardsticks proclaiming solutions to climate change. Instead, I took a long walk in Prospect Park. Then I returned home and my message machine was blinking.

I pressed the button. A child’s voice. “Ms. Vail, Please come back.”

I’m sorry. I can’t.

Vail has been a teacher in Brownsville, Brooklyn, for 18 years, and at P.S. 156 for the last 13 years.

Staten Island Councilman Joe Borelli Sues The NYC DOE To Re-Open Schools

 

Staten Island City Councilman Joe Borelli announces a lawsuit to force NYC to resume
in-person learning last month [photo: Paul Martinka]

We do not agree with the sudden closing of all schools. See this from the New York Times, November 20, 2020:

Parents Erupt in Frustration as New York City Schools Close

“Does the mayor think we’re all stay-at-home moms?”

We believe that the NYC Department of Education and NYC itself are in chaos, without any firm, workable standard, or policy to follow, and too many parents, students, and teachers are harmed if the schools keep opening and closing in a haphazard manner, as we see in NYC.

As a parent and teacher advocate, I know that thousands of NYC families do not have food for their kids or internet access. While some effort is being made to remedy this situation, and we value that, the efforts are not enough.

Essential workers who depend upon schools to take care of their kids not only in terms of learning, but feeding, and watching them, giving them opportunities to socialize safely - with masks and 6 feet apart - are all very important not only for these kids today, but tomorrow and far into the future.

At the same time, I am stunned by the denial of accommodations being handed out to educators who are compromised by medical conditions, while others get the rest of the school year teaching remotely. We must do better.

There should be a concerted effort to gather together a team of concerned educators who will visit each home in their community to see what the immediate needs of the families are and make a record.

How about you start, Chancellor Carranza? Donate your salary to this team and put your feet where they need to be, running toward a solution. We know the problems and we have the ability to solve the gap between those who have everything and those who have nothing. Let's do something meaningful.

Best of luck, Councilman Borelli, on this precedent-setting lawsuit.

Betsy Combier
Editor, ADVOCATZ.com
Editor, ADVOCATZ blog
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials 

Staten Island Councilman Joe Borelli, parents file lawsuit to reopen NYC schools

Susan Edelman, NYPOST, November 21, 2020

Staten Island City Councilman Joe Borelli joined parents in filing a second lawsuit seeking an emergency injunction to reopen public schools, he announced Saturday.

The Friday night filing in Manhattan federal court comes on the heels of Mayor de Blasio’s controversial decision to shutter all city schools due to rising COVID-19 cases.

“Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carranza have continued to fail our children time and time again,” Borelli said in a statement. “Even though they had six months to prepare for this school year, they failed to do so and our children are forced to pay the price.”

He added, “Remote learning has proven to be a failure and now they have taken the extra step of closing the schools completely. This is utterly irresponsible and unacceptable.”

Borelli and a group of Staten Island parents filed a lawsuit last month in Richmond County Supreme Court to demand a full reopening of schools. The suit complained that remote instruction is depriving students of an adequate education.

The plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Mark Fonte, Lou Gelormino, and James Mermigis.

“Governor Cuomo said just two days ago that ‘the infection rates in the schools are very low and the infections are not coming from the schools,’” Mermigis said in a statement.

“Why are we closing our schools? This is just another example of the random and arbitrary decisions that are being made in Albany and City Hall. But now, we are hurting our children and this incompetence at the top is unacceptable.”

De Blasio said he stuck to a promise to parents and teachers before opening schools that he would shut them as a safety precaution if the positivity rate hit 3 percent on a rolling seven-day average.

P.S. 128 Parents Protest Lack of Live Streaming For Students In Blended Learning

Parents at PS 128 and throughout the New York City school district are furious with the fake news coming from the Department of Education.

Here is a quote from an anonymous parent in the QNS.com article posted today: 

"...we don’t know why they aren’t able to do a live stream of the in-person classes for the students in blended learning..."

Chancellor, or Mayor, what's the answer?

Betsy Combier

betsy.combier@gmail.com

Editor, ADVOCATZ.com

Editor, ADVOCATZ Blog

Editor, NYC Rubber Room Reporter
Editor, Parentadvocates.org
Editor, New York Court Corruption
Editor, National Public Voice
Editor, NYC Public Voice
Editor, Inside 3020-a Teacher Trials

Middle Village parents protest outside of P.S. 128 over lack of live instruction for blended learning students

By Angélica Acevedo, QNS, October 1, 2020

Approximately three dozen parents and kids gathered outside of P.S./I.S. 128 in Middle Village on Thursday, Oct. 1, to demand the school give students the live instruction they were promised with the blended learning model.

Parents of the K-8 public school, located at 69-10 65th Drive, who enrolled their children in blended learning said they’ve gone days without teachers giving virtual classes — and they’ve had enough.

“The issue is that we don’t know why they aren’t able to do a live stream of the in-person classes for the students in blended learning,” said one parent who asked to remain anonymous.

Some parents told QNS that with the blended model, their children have in-person schooling once or twice a week and the rest of the week they are completing assignments with minimal to no teacher-student virtual interaction.

They worry their kids aren’t getting the education they deserve.

“My child’s a sixth-grader, preparing for high school … there are other parents who have-eighth graders with the same situation. How are they being graded? When it comes time to apply to high school, do they just give up?” the parent said. “Nothing is shared with us.”

Some of the parents at the protest questioned why P.S. 128 was having the issue, saying they haven’t heard of other nearby schools going through the same situation.

P.S. 128, which has 900 students and served as an REC this summer, has a stellar reputation in the surrounding community. But during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of schools in March, some parents said their children weren’t receiving live instruction then either.

During the hour-long protest, parents and kids gathered on the side of the school to talk about their concerns. Several school safety officers and an NYPD van were standing by.

A few minutes into the protest, a parent coordinator came out to speak with the group of parents.

“We have people here that are listening. You have to be patient,” they said, before leaving promptly.

The protest was organized by a concerned parent, who asked to remain anonymous, with a post that quickly gained traction on local Facebook groups.

Shortly after the post made the rounds on social media, parents received a letter from the school’s administration that afternoon saying they are working to remedy the concerns.

But parents said they’re only getting answers because of the protest, that there has been minimal communication from the school and that even the models they were presented with — blended, remote and in-person — weren’t clearly described to them.

“Why didn’t they organize this better? Be truthful to the parents,” one parent, who is an essential worker and asked to remain anonymous, told QNS. “If you decided blended, the rest of the week your child would not have a live instruction. Explain it first, then we could have organized this differently. I had no idea … My son is calling me, home alone, waiting for my 84-year-old mother to come — she has to take two buses to get over here and she doesn’t know how to work the computer.”

The parent, who had their child at the REC at P.S. 128 during the summer, said that if they knew remote learning would mean five days of live instruction, they would have opted for that instead. But childcare during their work day remained a concern.

This week, the Department of Education reported that 48 percent of public school students opted for fully remote learning this fall.

John Pastor, who has a seventh-grader at P.S. 128 doing remote learning, said the school’s principal, Camillo Turriciano, “needs to do a better job.”

“The principal has to voice our concerns to the Board of Ed, he is our liaison, not the teachers. The teachers are our liaisons in learning,” Pastor said. “If the principal comes to me and says, ‘Look John, I went to the Board of Ed and they said no,’ guess what we’re going to do? We’re going to go to the Board of Ed, but he doesn’t tell us anything.”

Pastor and a group of parents will be sending a letter to the city and meeting with local Councilman Robert Holden this week.

Jonathan Kingston, who has two children at P.S. 128 doing blended learning, believes the issue stems from the DOE and UFT.

“I think the fish stinks from the head,” said Kingston. “I don’t think it’s appropriate, the way they’re going about this. This notion that we can jump between a live teacher some days and then some different teacher remotely sending instructions different days. There’s no reason why they can’t live stream the actual class with the same teacher, same day, and have it be seamless.”

Kingston added that while he understands that the argument that schools need more funding, he asks if the DOE is appropriately using the resources they currently have.

“More funding is not always the answer,” he said. “If you’re going to now have one teacher doing the job of what one teacher can and should do, then I would respectfully submit that more funding is not the way to go. I think the teachers union might do a great job of looking out for teachers, [but] I think that the interest of the students always should supersede the concerns of the teachers union.”

The Community Education Council for District 24 sent an email Thursday morning to encourage parents to complete a survey about their concerns and join their Parent To Parent Zoom meeting taking place next week. A date has not yet been announced.

DOE spokesperson Danielle Filson said they are working on ramping up live instruction for blended learners.

“We appreciate everyone’s flexibility and patience at the start of this unprecedented school year and our goal is to have in-person instruction for our blended students on their in-person days, and to ramp up live instruction for blended learners on their remote days,” Filson said. “P.S. 128 was excited to welcome the school community back this week and is offering students rich courses using both in-person and remote methods. The Executive Superintendent and Superintendent are working closely with the principal to add additional staff as quickly as possible.”

ZEN Pig: Fill Your Child's Day With Gratitude

As most of my friends know, I am a fan of mindfulness and mending the mind. I was sent a press release of this book and thought I would pass it on.

Stay safe.

Betsy

For the video, click here:

Zen Pig

THE CHILDREN'S BOOK CHARACTER THAT TEACHES GRATITUDE, MINDFULNESS, AND COMPASSION

For the video click here

Zen Pig

THE CHILDREN'S BOOK CHARACTER THAT TEACHES GRATITUDE, MINDFULNESS, AND COMPASSION

Meet Zen Pig in the first book of Mark Brown's series!

Zen Pig teaches children the value of gratitude, mindfulness, and compassion in a way that's easy for them to understand.

It's a carefully constructed book full of wisdom that's sure to be the most uplifting part of class, storytime, or bedtime.

Help Your Child Understand Gratitude

KIDS (AND PARENTS) CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF ZEN PIG'S LESSONS

There's never been a more important time to teach your child about gratitude and happiness...

Children can have a hard time learning the concepts of patience, acceptance, and gratitude. Through simple yet impactful artwork, Zen Pig teaches us the importance of being grateful and open to the world around us.

We are so proud of the positive impact that he's made in our community...and we recently discovered it is also being used by teachers in classrooms across the country.

Meet the Author

Mark Brown

Mark Brown is writer and speaker passionately helping others awaken to a life of purpose, presence and intention.

Born in Hampton Roads, VA over 30 years ago Mark Brown now resides in booming Nashville, TN with his wife Amy and son Noble.

Carmen Farina on Charters and the Future

NYC Chancellor Carmen Farina

From Betsy Combier:

It's about Carmen. It's always about Carmen.

Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña takes questions from parents, educators at packed Bronx forum

BY LAURA BULT , DENIS SLATTERY 

 

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Friday, May 29, 2015, 1:02 AM

LINK
From a mother's worries over failing schools to a teacher’s push for mental health services, the city schools boss opened her inbox to more than 500 concerned parents and educators at a packed town hall forum Thursday in the Bronx.

They traveled from as near as Mott Hall Science and Technology in the South Bronx and from as far away as Bushwick, Brooklyn, to drill Chancellor Carmen Fariña on hot-topic issues like the expansion of the city’s gifted and talented programs, teacher evaluations and school performance.

“What are you doing about professional development and abandoning programs that do not work?” Brooklyn teacher Darnese Olivieri demanded to raucous, standing-room-only cheers from fellow teachers in the audience during the “Fight for Their Future” forum co-hosted by the Daily News and the community group Metro IAF.

Q&A with Carmen Fariña from the town hall forum on city schools

Fariña, grappling with a school system that has been struggling for decades, promised to visit an Eva Moscowitz-run Success Academy charter school, gave no opinion on tax credits for kids who leave public schools for private institutions, supported spreading PTA-raised funds from school to school, and said teacher evaluations should be based on a combination of student test scores and peer review.

“I do think the best way to get better is peer review, teacher to teacher, principal to principal,” Fariña said.

The chancellor fielded tough questions from parents, teachers and education advocates about the difficulties of accessing good schools, why bad schoolscontinue to fail, and why some city classrooms are out of control — and she offered to keep listening to parents and teachers.

“I read the Daily News, and in the last forum I was faulted because I didn’t leave my email behind,” she said before producing a large sign with her email address.

“I do believe we need to use test scores for a portion of the evaluations,” Fariña said. “The percentage we use is up for debate. In my opinion, 30% is acceptable.”

Teacher Leton Hall used the open dialogue to ask about mental health services at struggling schools.

“As a teacher, everybody has to pick up the slack for some of these students in troubled situations,” said Hall, 34, a science teacher at the Mott Hall Science and Technology Academy.

Fariña, who touted the addition of 250 counselors earlier this week, agreed that more help is needed.

“All our community schools or after-school programs have to have mentalhealth clinics in their schools, no excuses. We’re looking to see how to use co-location sites so schools can share resources,” she said referring to separate schools housed within one building.

She said her plan was to boost the number of social workers and counselors at schools across the city.

Jessica Franco Ramos, of Brooklyn, brought the charter versus public school debate to the forefront by comparing the level of services available to her daughter, a charter school student, and her brother in public school.

“My daughter is currently a sixth-grader and, day by day, I see how she’s excelling thanks to the support of her teachers,” Ramos said. But her brother, for whom she’s the primary caregiver, struggles to find support and resources at a public school. “When I reached out to his guidance counselor she told me that she had 400 students to work with in addition to him,” she said.

Fariña was clear that she believes improving public schools was the answer, not adding more charters.

“I want to be very clear that there are great charter schools and great public schools,” Fariña responded. The forum followed The News’ hard-hitting “Fight for Their Future” series that focused on issues in public schools across the city.

“The Daily News takes very seriously the coverage of education because we know how important it is to our readers and to the city,” said Daily News Editorial Page Editor Arthur Browne.

The event, moderated by Errol Louis with co-moderator Ben Chapman of The News, was held at the Immaculate Conception School in the heart of the struggling South Bronx School District 7.

The long-foundering education district has the lowest ratio of elementary and middle schoolers proficient in reading, just 10%, and the lowest number of kids proficient in math, only 13%.

Forum participant Tracy Woodall, 44, pulled her kids from District 7 schools after finding the quality of education inconsistent.

“It’s a disconnect, no meetings, no nothing,” Woodall said. “It’s like you’re going from one grade to the next and it’s like going to another school.”

Woodall sends her kids to KIPP Academy charter school in Melrose, a 40-minute trip each way.

“I feel bad being a parent from the Bronx, we shouldn’t have to travel outside our district to find quality education.”

 

Campbell Brown To File a Second Anti-Tenure Lawsuit in New York

So sad seeing how politicians and wealthy education "reformers" who do not know anything about teaching use parents and children to get the wrong policies they, the so-called "reformers", want. The tenure lawsuits are about grabbing the $billions in public money, not about teacher effectiveness. Union bashing at its least finest political moment.

The Sad, Misinformed Campaign of Campbell Brown To End Tenure Rights of Teachers

Mona Davids Fools No One, as Her Foolhardy Lawsuit Against Teacher Tenure Gains Thousands of Opponents

The Frivolous Case of NYC Parent Mona Davids v Tenure

N.Y. Teacher Tenure Law Targeted After California Ruling

Take a look at what's happening in Colorado, also below.

Betsy Combier



Natalie Mendoza, 8, seen here with parents Angeles Barragan and Armando Mendoza, is
named in a new lawsuit challenging teacher tenure.

EXCLUSIVE: Second lawsuit challenging teacher tenure to be filed by group of New York families

In a suit to be filed in Albany on Monday, seven families will charge that their children are underserved in schools due to incompetent teachers — who only kept their jobs because of tenure rules that violate the kids' constitutional right to a sound education. The suit is backed by the politically connected journalist-turned-education advocate Campbell Brown.

BY BEN CHAPMAN , STEPHEN REX BROWN 

 

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

 

Sunday, July 27, 2014, 2:30 AM




Plaintiff Nina Doster, of Queens, poses with children (from left) Patience, Micah and King.

Seven families will file suit Monday to end teacher tenure in the fiercest attack yet on job protections enjoyed by New York State educators.

The families, including five from some of the most impoverished communities in the city, claim their children were underserved in school due to incompetent teachers who only kept their jobs because of tenure rules that violate kids’ constitutional right to a sound, basic education.

The lawsuit will be filed in Albany and is backed by the politically connected journalist-turned-education advocate, Campbell Brown.

“There’s no reason why my kids should not be reading on grade level. The law should be changed,” said Nina Doster, 33, of South Ozone Park, Queens. The mother of five is a plaintiff in the suit and also a paid organizer for the StudentsFirstNY advocacy group.

“Every child should be subject to the best education and teaching in every classroom,” she said.

Brown and her new reform group, Partnership For Educational Justice, argue that the current tenure, seniority, and dismissal protections make it almost impossible to fire bad teachers in New York State. They also say that the layoffs policy in which most recently hired teachers are the first to be fired deters the best new educators.

The lawsuit details the frustration of Tauana Goins, who says a teacher at Public School 106 in Far Rockaway, Queens, called students “miserable” and went so far as to call her 8-year-old daughter “a loser.” The girl became so scared she regressed academically, her 27-year-old mother says.

Another kid named in the suit, King Doster, 6, said his teacher at P.S. 140 in Springfield Gardens, Queens, claimed she was “too busy” to help him learn to read.

Yet another, Natalie Mendoza, said her kindergarten teacherslept through class in a rocking chair at P.S. 94. in the Norwood section of the Bronx. That same teacher allegedly gave Natalie good grades despite her being unable to read. The teacher told Natalie’s mom, Angeles Barragan, not to worry about her daughter’s academic struggles because “it was just kindergarten,” according to the suit.

“My daughter wasn’t learning to read,” said Barragan, 48, whose daughter may have to attend second grade for a third time. “I went to observe the class and I saw that the teacher was just sitting in a rocking chair and the parent volunteers were the ones who were doing the teaching.”

Brown hailed the plaintiffs as pioneers.

“I stand in awe of these parents and their commitment to demanding that the system change,” Brown said. “As a mom I think we should evaluate every education law or policy by first asking, ‘Is this good for children?’”

The suit, which will include two families from Rochester, is the second legal challenge of teacher tenure. The first was brought by the New York City Parents Union and filed in Staten Island Supreme Court. It’s possible the two will eventually be combined.

Brown has enlisted the powerhouse law firm Kirkland & Ellis to handle the case, which is working pro bono. It is among the largest firms in the country and played a prominent role in defending California’s controversial parent trigger law, which allows parents to force major changes at failing schools if they are able to gather signatures from 51% of parents.

She hopes to facilitate similar suits in any state that has similar protections for unionized teachers.

The complaint does not name the allegedly incompetent educators, but argues that tenure laws lead to bad teachers, a claim supported by some research.

But observers say it will take much more than just education horror stories to win the case.

Brown “has to prove inequity, inadequacy and causation — that the different legal constellation in New York causes the learning issues that we see throughout the state,” said David Bloomfield an education professor at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate Center.

The lawsuit is inspired by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge’s ruling in June that declared teacher tenure violates students’ civil rights to a quality education. The ruling in the case, Vergara v. California, was endorsed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan. It is under appeal.

Brown has received guidance from David Welch, the Silicon Valley billionaire who funded the Vergara case. She will not disclose the names of donors funding her current effort.

The teachers union would not comment on the lawsuit, but has defended tenure as a way to ensure educators’ due process before being terminated.

sbrown@nydailynews.com

Denver Teachers Suing District to Protest Forced Layoffs by dianeravitch In 2010, Colorado State Senator Michael Johnston took credit for a piece of legislation called Senate Bill 191, which he said would produce "Great Schools, Great Teachers, Great Principals." Its main feature was tying teacher evaluation to their students' scores, which counted for 50%. But it included other time bombs. One allowed districts to lay off teachers for various reasons. Now seven teachers and the Denver Classroom Teachers Association is suing. One of those who lost her job was Cynthia Masters, a special-education teacher in a K-8 school. She was one of only 3,000 to lose their job. "In the four years since the law was passed, nearly 3,000 DPS teachers have lost their positions due to what the district calls "reduction in building," or RIB for short. The reasons that teachers are RIBed vary: Some lose their jobs because their schools are "turned around" or closed. Others are cut because school enrollment drops. In Masters's case, she was RIBed due to a decrease in the number of special-ed students. Of those 3,000 teachers, 1,240 had at least three years' worth of positive evaluations, including Masters. And not all of them have been able to find new jobs. According to the law, still widely referred to as Senate Bill 191, RIBed teachers with three years of positive reviews — officially known as "nonprobationary" — who can't find a position within a certain time frame are put on unpaid leave, a move that both unions believe violates the state constitution......" "Brad Bartels, an attorney with the Colorado Education Association, says these teachers are victims of DPS's brand of musical chairs. They didn't lose their positions because they were bad teachers, he insists: "They just didn't have a chair when the music stopped." "Seven DPS teachers and the DCTA have now sued the district. (The statewide CEA is representing the DCTA in the matter.) The lawsuit is a class action, and the plaintiffs represent several different classes, including all teachers in Colorado who were considered nonprobationary prior to the passage of Senate Bill 191 and all nonprobationary DPS teachers who were RIBed and ended up on unpaid leave. "Westword spoke with five of the seven plaintiffs and found that they have several things in common: All are older than 45 and have good teaching records. Upon losing their positions, all five applied for hundreds of teaching assignments within DPS but, inexplicably to them, received just a few interviews. Only one managed to avoid being put on unpaid leave or being forced into early retirement. "I applied for over 700 positions in the district," says plaintiff Michelle Montoya, who got RIBed in the fall of 2010. "I thought, 'I can deal with this. I'm going to go get a job. My skills are definitely needed.' And I just never got a second interview." Will Senator Michael Johnston live long enough to declare that Colorado now has great teachers, great principals, great schools, thanks to Senate Bill 191?

Common Core Mystifies Parents

Math Under Common Core Has Even Parents Stumbling

NY TIMES June 29, 2014
LINK
GREENWELL SPRINGS, La. — Rebekah and Kevin Nelams (pictured above) moved to their modest brick home in this suburb of Baton Rouge seven years ago because it has one of the top-performing public school districts in the state. But starting this fall, Ms. Nelams plans to home-school the couple’s four elementary-age children.

The main reason: the methods that are being used for teaching math under the Common Core, a set of academic standards adopted by more than 40 states.

Ms. Nelams said she did not recognize the approaches her children, ages 7 to 10, were being asked to use on math work sheets. They were frustrated by the pictures, dots and sheer number of steps needed to solve some problems. Her husband, who is a pipe designer for petroleum products at an engineering firm, once had to watch a YouTube video before he could help their fifth-grade son with his division homework.

“They say this is rigorous because it teaches them higher thinking,” Ms. Nelams said. “But it just looks tedious.”

A second-grade math work sheet.

Across the country, parents who once conceded that their homework expertise petered out by high school trigonometry are now feeling helpless when confronted with first-grade work sheets. Stoked by viral postings online that ridicule math homework in which students are asked to critique a phantom child’s thinking or engage in numerous steps, along with mockery from comedians including Louis C. K. and Stephen Colbert, these parents are adding to an increasingly fierce political debate about whether the Common Core is another way in which Washington is taking over people’s lives.

In Louisiana, the dispute intensified this month when Gov. Bobby Jindal said he wanted to withdraw the state from the Common Core, although others questioned his authority to do so. Already, the legislatures in Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina have repealed the Common Core standards, and for many candidates running for political office, their views on the standards have become crucial election issues.

The new instructional approach in math seeks to help children understand and use it as a problem-solving tool instead of teaching them merely to repeat formulas over and over. They are also being asked to apply concepts to real-life situations and explain their reasoning.

This is partly because employers are increasingly asking for workers who can think critically and partly because traditional ways of teaching math have yielded lackluster results. In global tests, American students lag behindchildren in several Asian countries and some European nations, and the proportion of students achieving advanced levels is low. Common Core slims down curriculums so that students can spend more time grasping specific mathematical concepts.

The guidelines are based on research that shows that students taught conceptually retain the math they learn.And many longtime math teachers, including those in organizations like the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics and the National Council of Supervisors of Mathematics, have championed the standards.Continue reading the main story


“I taught math very much like the Common Core for many years,” said Linda M. Gojak, president of the National Council of Teachers of Math. “When parents would question it, my response was ‘Just hang in there with me,’ and at the end of the year they would come and say this was the best year their kids had in math.”

But for parents, the transition has been hard. Moreover, textbooks and other materials have not yet caught up with the new standards, and educators unaccustomed to learning or teaching more conceptually are sometimes getting tongue-tied when explaining new methodologies.

“It is incredibly easy for these new instructional approaches to look good on paper or to work well in pilot classrooms in the hands of highly skilled experts,” said Frederick M. Hess, the director of education policy studies for the American Enterprise Institute, “and then to turn into mushy, lazy confusing goop as it spreads out to classrooms and textbooks.”

Even supporters of the Common Core say changes are being pushed too quickly. Rushing to institute a new math curriculum does not make sense if you are “planning to get the job done in a rational way,” said Phil Daro, one of three principal writers of the Common Core math standards.

Tensions over the Common Core have been heightened because the standards are tied to new standardized tests being introduced in many states. Teachers are fretting that their performance ratings will increasingly depend on how their students perform on these tests.

While several states have postponed the consequences of test results on teacher evaluations, many educators feel the pressure.

“Imagine, if you will, if the state government came down to Detroit and said in six weeks you have to be 100 percent metric,” said Jonathan Marceau, a fourth-grade teacher in Shelby Township, Mich., a northern suburb of Detroit, who is worried that some algebraic and geometric concepts are now being introduced too early for children to absorb.




“Detroit says, ‘Great, we can do that, but we have to retool, retrain and make sure people have gone through the growth curve on this thing, and it will probably take more than six weeks,’ ” he said. “The government says, ‘Tough, we’re not going to give you any manual or tools for this transition, but if anybody makes a car with a defect, they are going to get fired.’ ”

Some educators said that with the Common Core’s focus on questioning lines of reasoning and explaining answers, the new methods were particularly challenging for students with learning disabilities, or those who struggle orally or with writing.

“To make a student feel like they’re not good at math because they can’t explain something that to them seems incredibly obvious clearly isn’t good for the student,” said W. Stephen Wilson, a math professor at Johns Hopkins University.

Some parents of children who have typically excelled at math find the curriculum laboriously slow.

In Slidell, an affluent suburb of New Orleans, Jane Stenstrom is concerned that her daughter, who was assigned to a class for gifted students as a third grader last year, did not progress quickly enough. “For the advanced classes, it’s restricting them from being able to move forward,” Ms. Stenstrom said one recent afternoon.

Her daughter, Anna Grace, 9, said she grew frustrated “having to draw all those little tiny dots.”

“Sometimes I had to draw 42 or 32 little dots, sometimes more,” she said, adding that being asked to provide multiple solutions to a problem could be confusing. “I wanted to know which way was right and which way was wrong.”

Math experts say learning different approaches helps students develop problem-solving skills beyond math. Employers “want a generation of people who can think and reason and can construct an argument,” said Steven Leinwand, a researcher for the American Institutes of Research.

In Louisiana, John White, state superintendent of education, said that politics aside, applying the Common Core math standards would take time.

"This is a shift for an entire society,” he said. “No one should be under any illusion that it’s going to take just a year or two to rethink the way that we teach mathematics, because it is really challenging.” The State Education Department has said it will not use scores from Common Core tests in teacher evaluations for the next two years.

Laci Maniscalco, a third-grade teacher in Lafayette, La., who said that sometimes her students cried during the past year when working on problems under the new curriculum, said she had seen genuine progress in their understanding — and in her own, as well.

“I have told my students countless times that I wish I had been taught the way you are having the opportunity to learn,” she said.